Sometimes I get the feeling that the vast majority of people don’t have their own opinions anymore. It seems that people take the first piece of news or even just rumors and run with them. Nobody takes the time to do their own research.
Having worked at the Branding Iron for a couple school years now, I have been well-trained on the importance of doing your own research while writing articles. Having to write, especially at a newspaper, trains one to look deeply into all the information one can dig up and analyze that data in order to create the most truthful, unbiased article possible that can then be printed for the masses to read. However, I don’t think this is something that should exist solely at a newspaper.
Members of society as a whole need to be doing their own research, too. Often times when people hear something, they just accept it as a fact. Nobody questions whether or not that information is accurate or really questions the source of that information. People need to be thinking more critically than that.
Without questioning everything or desiring to know the absolute truth, we just are sheep living in a field of lies. That’s not a world I want to live in. I don’t want to be influenced by half-baked ideas and false truths. No, I would rather know what the heck is going on and why.
The next time you hear some news don’t be a “baaaAAAAD” sheep. You need to sit there and think, “Hmm, my friend just told me that Justin Bieber rode a bedazzled pink rocket that farted out rainbows to Saturn. Maybe I should do some research and find out the real facts.”
While that is an obviously exaggerated example, the truth still stands. Be more critical when receiving news about different things. Not everything that leaves someone’s mouth or fingers on the keyboard is true. Do your own work so that you’re not perpetually walking around that field of lies.
It honestly kills me when I’ve heard some news, do the research, find out the real facts, and hear false rumors being spread around like wildfire. That, to me, is not very “lit.” That is a shameful thing.
I think one of the reasons that so many people fall easily into the flock is because they hear the same false crap from all their friends and they trust their friends, so they just believe it. This is an issue of not doing research, but also not doing diverse enough research if any is done.
In the case of political news, many people only watch or listen to one or two news sources from one side of things. Don’t just watch Fox News, watch Fox News AND watch CNN, if you really must watch either. As a side note, I’m shaking my head as I write this. Anyway, my point is gather information from all over so that you have a diverse knowledge base and can form your own opinions. This will make you a more responsible citizen.
At the end of the day, I just want to see our society stop being a flock of sheep being led around by a few individual entities that don’t bother to be unbiased or gather accurate information. I want a society that is free-thinking and asks critical questions about the information that is presented to it. Our society is just a conglomeration of all kinds of mush. I don’t see all the individuals that should be out their rocking their own opinions. I just see sheep chewing crud and not caring about the world around them. This needs to change.
